WEST BO GOLDMAN is a native of New York City. He attended Princeton University and, at 24, had his first play produced on Broadway. Titled "First Impressions," it was a musical version of "Pride and Prejudice," with words by Bo Goldman, book by Abe Burrows and music by Glenn Paxton. During the early 60s, Goldman worked in television, writing and producing teleplays for CBS' "Seven Lively Arts"--on which he collaborated with such emerging directors as George Roy Hill and Sidney Lumet. He also associate produced and wrote a number of programs for "Playhouse 90," all the while struggling to get a second play mounted on Broadway. Goldman's first screenwriting effort, "Shoot the Moon," took ten years to make it into theaters. One of the many people to read the script during that time was director Milos Forman, who didn't want to make the film but instead asked Goldman to do a re-write of a project that Forman was about to direct. The resulting effort, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," was a tremendous success and remains to this day only the second film in Academy history to win Best Picture, Direction, Actor, Actress and Screenplay. Since that time, Goldman has had several original scripts produced: "Melvin and Howard," which won him a second writing Oscar, and the much-traveled "Shoot the Moon," which was directed by Alan Parker and starred Diane Keaton and Albert Finney. Goldman's other screen credit is "The Rose." Journalist David Chute once wrote: "Goldman's flair for lifelike dialogue and behavioral details--an organic impression of ongoing life--has won him an enviable reputation and a solid sideline as a 'fixer' of troubled films." Goldman lives in Northern California with his wife of 34 years, Mab, and is the father of six children. FILMOGRAPHY One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975).....Screenplay by Senator DECONCINI. Thank you, Mr. Goldman. Mr. Spielberg. STATEMENT OF STEVEN SPIELBERG ON BEHALF OF THE DIRECTORS GUILD OF AMERICA, ACCOMPANIED BY ELLIOT SILVERSTEIN Mr. SPIELBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Steven Spielberg, and I am a director and producer of motion pictures. I am here today on my own behalf and on the behalf of 8,500 fellow members of the Directors Guild of America. Sitting with me to my right is Elliot Silverstein, who is also a director and chairman of the committee at the Directors Guild charged with the pursuit of our moral rights cause. He will also be available for any questions you might have. It is 1812 and British soldiers have captured some American paintings and prints and taken them to Halifax, Nova Scotia. A suit has been brought over this action and filed with the British authorities. A British Admiralty Justice has heard the case and as part of his judgment has given the following warning: The same law of nations, which prescribes that all property belonging to the enemy shall be liable to confiscation, has likewise its modifications and relaxations of that rule. The arts and sciences are admitted amongst all civilized nations as forming an exception to the severe rights of warfare, and as entitled to favor and protection. They are considered not as a peculium of this or that nation, but as the property of mankind at large and as belonging to the common interests of the whole species. Those paintings and prints were ordered released to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. That justice understood what so many of our adversaries in this hearing and in the congressional hearings which preceded it do not understand: that art claims a special status among civilized nations. Artistic endeavor is, in fact, the expression of the soul of the human species, and we are here today to discuss the disposition of a small but important piece of the soul of America, its art, more specifically its motion pictures, perhaps our Nation's foremost ambassadors to the world. The Berne treaty, Mr. Chairman, gives voice to this idea that art and the artist are not commodities to be treated like sausage. The Berne treaty gives to the artist a specific standing to object to a defacement of his or her work, and it recognizes moral rights as distinct from economic rights. That distinction is at the heart of the debate surrounding the Berne treaty issue. As you know, in order to sign the treaty a country must have a moral rights concept in its domestic law, sufficiently clear to comply with the requirements of the treaty. Our adversaries maintain that United States law is sufficient to qualify for Berne membership and no further recognition need be given to the moral rights of its artists. No film fantasy is as outlandish or as blatant as that claim. Under what law is the work of film artists, for instance, protected? Where is the law that defines their moral rights? What law gave Frank Capra moral rights to object to the colorization of "It's A Wonderful Life"? What law gave John Houston legal support to seek redress for his disgust at a similar act of defacement performed on "The Maltese Falcon"? What law protects those of our colleagues, living and dead, whose honor and reputation are offended by the electronic speeding up or slowing down of their films or the capricious editing of scenes done in order to fit films into arbitrary television time slots?-a curse, by the way, not visited on sports events, which proves the networks can be flexible when they want to be. If some think the Lanham Act protects us, they are wrong. In order to comply with its warnings about misrepresentations, a film defacer would merely have to put up a disclaimer before the film was projected, stating that it has done this or that to that film. The Lanham Act does not protect the film, it does not protect the artists. It protects the consumer, and does not in any way bestow the credentials on the United States which are clearly required by the Berne treaty. We request that you rebalance the competing interests of "show" and "business" after the employee/employer period is over and all the deadlines have been met. We urge that Berne implementing legislation contain our proposal that without the agreement or permission of the two artistic authors-the principal director and principal screen writer-no material alterations may be made in a film following its first paid public exhibition after previous trial runs and festivals. We further propose that the Congress limit the reward for the agreement between artist authors to $1. There are those that say the marketplace enjoys this defacement. They want to see black-and-white films in pastel colors. They want to see it going faster or slower. They will tolerate any disfigurement. Mr. Chairman, this is one of the most ticklish answers I have to offer in this chamber this morning, but I think it must be said: that the creation of art is not a democratic process, and in the very tyranny of its defined vision lies its value to the Nation. The public has no right to vote on whether a black-and-white film is to be colored, any more than it has the right to vote on how the scene should be written, whether the camera should favor the actor or actress, whether it should move or remain fixed, or on any of the thousands of other artistic choices made by the artist in the turbulent process of creation. The public does have the right to reject or accept the result but not to participate in its creation. My good friend Mr. Jack Valenti, who represents the Motion Picture Association of America, has said that the motion picture companies lose $1 billion a year to film pirates, and he seeks the Berne treaty protection, and in that we wish him well. However, it is ironic, Mr. Chairman, that he proposes that the United States use the same tactics as the pirates, who refuse to pay the price for what they are using. He proposes that the United States sneak past the box office without paying for the ticket. He proposes that the MPAA get all the economic protection of Berne without paying the price it requires-moral rights. Mr. Chairman, let not the United States attempt to gain something for nothing. Let us not stand accused by other Berne nations of sleazy behavior, or let us not attempt to sneak past the box office. Let us honorably pay the price of Berne and serve the future, and let generations yet unborn seen the films produced by our film artists as they were released, not in some distorted form designed by an engineer or a Master of Business Administration, a lawyer, an accountant, a marketeer, an executive, or some other nonartist who, while not claiming an individual right of paternity, does not step into the light and take the discredit for what has been done to our films; who rather hides in the dark, behind the corporate shield. In the interest of fair play and honor among the civilized nations of the world, we ask the Senate to stand up and perform an act of political courage: to resist the economic powers which insist that you serve them and not us; to recognize the moral principle involved here as of greater importance to our national self-esteem than another buck on the bottom line; to grant that Berne requires moral rights in American law that do not now exist. Finally, Mr. Chairman, the business community makes the bizarre claim that the grant of moral rights will result in lawsuits and the clogging of the court system. First let me say that there is a strong self-policing component in our proposal. If a director or a writer does not agree to an alteration of a finished film which is desired by the financier, it is highly likely he or she will not be employed by that financier again; but he or she will have a choice and there will be a balancing of interests. Second, if our courts are clogged at present in this country, it is because the citizens demand rights given to them by the Constitution and the law, and that is a healthy thing, critical to the functioning of a democracy. You should be aware that in France, at least, we have been told that there has only been one moral rights case brought to court in 50 years. Third, since in order to object the artist would have to go to court, he or she would have to spend a lot of money, and who would have the deeper pockets, the individual or the corporation? The artist would have to care very much about the disposition of the work, but the artist would have a choice and there would be a balancing of interests. We ask nothing for ourselves. We ask everything for the future. Certainly, Mr. Chairman, there must be some part of the great tapestry of American political, economic, and cultural life so influenced by the Congress of the United States, where value shall survive price. Thank you. [Material submitted by Mr. Spielberg follows:] GUILL DIRECTORS GUILD OF AMERICA Statement of Steven Spielberg My name is Steven Spielberg, and I am a director and producer of motion pictures. I am here today on my own behalf and on behalf of my 8,500 fellow members of the Directors Guild of America. I have submitted a written statement on behalf of the Directors Guild of America. Sitting with me is Elliot Silverstein, also a director, and Chairman of the Committee at the Directors Guild, charged with the pursuit of our moral rights goals. He will also be available for any questions you may have. And now, if I may, I would like to make a brief oral statement. It is 1812 and British soldiers have captured some American paintings and prints and taken them to Halifax, Nova Scotia. A suit has been brought over this action and filed with the British authorities. A British Admiralty Justice has heard the case and as part of his judgment has given the following warning: |